Ep #281: When You Feel Taken Advantage Of

Hello empowered principals. Welcome to episode 281. 

Welcome to The Empowered Principal® Podcast, a not so typical educational resource that will teach you how to gain control of your career and get emotionally fit to lead your school and your life with joy by refining your most powerful tool, your mind. Here’s your host certified life coach Angela Kelly Robeck. 

Hello, my empowered leaders. Happy Tuesday. Hey, if you’re new, welcome to the podcast. So happy you’re here. I want to do a special shout out right now to all the brand new school leaders, all of y’all who are getting hired, and it’s your first time. Welcome. We’re so happy you are here. We are here to support you. Jump into our Facebook community so you can get support. 

If you’re an aspiring school leader, and you are listening to this, or maybe you have been following the spring training series that I’ve been offering throughout the month of April and May, come on into my world. Join us. I want to help you land that ideal job. So welcome if you’re new. Welcome if you’re aspiring. Come into the Facebook group, and just feel the love and talk. 

A lot of people are waiting for me to do all the posting and all the teaching and all the sharing. You guys are the experts. You’re out in the field doing the work, boots on the ground. I want you to know, you can utilize the Facebook group as a little mastermind, as a way to share ideas and to have fun together and to support each other when you’re having a tough day. 

We need a community that’s safe, and that understands one another. That trusts the environment that I have cultivated for you. I don’t let people come in and offer their services and products, except for me, because I want you to all have a coach. I’m going to be announcing something amazing. I am so excited. I can’t wait. But I can’t tell you yet. It’s killing me. It’s almost ready, I promise. 

So for those of you who are new, welcome. If you’re a veteran, hey, thanks for being a loyal listener and just hanging out with us and supporting all of our newbies. I love all of you. I’m so happy to be here. 

Okay, I’m going to talk about something that I just coached a client on. It felt so powerful and so valuable that I’m just jumping on here raw, and I’m just gonna talk about it because I do think it happens to us. I think we either dismiss it, or we stew on it and it kind of holds us back. Okay. 

So when you feel you have been taken advantage of or you feel that there is somebody taking advantage of you, I want to talk about that. Okay? So the first thing I’m going to say is when your brain offers you the thought I’m being taken advantage of or that person’s taking advantage of me, he or she is taking advantage of me, they’re taking advantage of me. 

I want you to ask yourself what do you mean by that? What exactly is happening that is leading up to the thought I’m being taken advantage of? Okay. What specifically is the situation that you are in or you’re facing or you have experienced that is leading you to that belief. Okay.

Number one, you need to understand exactly what you mean by that. Because that thought generates a very specific feeling inside of your body. You want to be clear with yourself what’s going on for you. Okay. So what is taking advantage of someone? How do people take advantage of you? What does that mean? 

So I was thinking of a list in addition to this client conversation. So I thought when people feel taken advantage of, what are they thinking or what’s happening? What’s the situation? Sometimes you feel like somebody’s gaslighting you where they are telling you something or manipulating a circumstance to get you to think about it differently than maybe the reality. So that might be one way where they’re manipulating emotionally or mentally and gaslighting you. 

A second reason I came up with is that people are asking you for value without giving it in return. That happens to me all the time actually. I have people who want my services, but they don’t want to pay for them. So they attend all my free stuff. They do everything, the podcast, every free training I have. They’ll email me and ask me questions. I tend to over deliver. I don’t feel taken advantage of very often. But if I do, I just say no. 

So if you’re a person who feels like there’s people asking for you to over deliver or overextend yourself or overwork or over exert without giving you anything in return, and that’s happening on a consistent basis, I’m going to talk more about that in a minute. But that is something you want to pay attention to and we want to find out why it’s happening, why you’re doing it, what kind of situations does it come up in, and then what you want to do differently so that you cannot feel taken advantage of, okay? 

Now, there’s a couple of other situations where you’re thinking, am I being taken advantage of, and you feel this hunch in your stomach, and it feels like a heavy pit? There are people who do have the intention of abusing other people mentally, physically, emotionally, psychologically. I want to acknowledge that. There are people out in the world who do have the intent when they interact with other people to take advantage of them. 

So in this coaching session, I’m not saying people don’t have the intention of trying to take advantage of you or prey on vulnerable people. There are people who do intend to steal your money, your material things, your time, your energy, your effort, your intellectual property, your passwords. There’s people out there, there’s the bots trying to steal all the passwords and trying to steal so they can get your information. I don’t know what they’re out there doing, but they do intend to cause harm. 

It does happen. I want to acknowledge that, first of all. So most of us have had this experience of being taken advantage of, and it feels terrible. I just want to acknowledge that, okay. These types of situations, you could literally go to a court of law and prove that someone has been attempting to take advantage of you.

I want to acknowledge those moments. I want to honor them. I want to respect them. If that is true for you, please get the support you need to protect yourself and keep yourself safe out of harm’s way so that you do have the ability to protect yourself from future situations happening. 

Like I remember one time my PayPal years and years ago, somebody hacked it. They were buying cars in Canada with my PayPal account. I mean tens of thousands of dollars in my PayPal. It was a mess. But I learned from that how to protect myself a little bit better. Of course, PayPal has put in tons of security measures. That was like 15 years ago. So they’ve definitely improved their practices. I have improved my practices. 

But you can be very vulnerable, and you can be taken advantage of, and you can be a victim. You want to honor that and then still get a coach to help you through process those emotions, especially if you need some kind of specific therapy or medical attention or psychological attention. Please get the support you need. 

What I’m going to talk about here today is when you feel you’ve been taken advantage of is kind of like a mindset or a self-identity of I’m a person who just gets taken advantage of. I’m going to talk a little bit about that today. Okay. 

So when I was coaching this person, the person was saying that they were identifying as an empath. They believed that other people took advantage of that characteristic of them, that they feel very deeply about other people. They care very deeply. They want to help other people. They take on other people’s emotions, and that people tend to take advantage of that caring this. 

So I asked this person to identify like tell me a little bit more like how you identify as a person who gets taken advantage of. They said it’s very one sided. It’s an imbalance of a person investing more time and energy and effort and support than the other person gives them. So it’s always one sided. It’s always imbalanced. There’s a need to protect your emotions because you’re busy taking on other people. Then they always feel like they give more than they receive.

I invest more than others invest in me. I give more than I receive. I take on other people’s emotions, and that leaves little or no room for me to express my own emotions, and people take advantage of that characteristic. Okay. These are the thoughts that are generating the emotions of being taken advantage of. So we looked at what were the emotions this person was feeling. What came up was hurt, helpless, wrong, dismissed, mistreated, things like being taken advantage of and being treated unfairly.

So I asked this person: let’s take a look at this and determine how you differentiate the difference between somebody who doesn’t take advantage of you and somebody who does take advantage of you. How do you define that? It came down to a couple of things.

There was all or none thinking going on where when you’re upset in the moment, the brain’s like only thinking about the times you felt you were taken advantage of, and noticing those moments, but not acknowledging the times that the person wasn’t taking advantage of you. So there was an all or none going on. Then also thinking, does this person never give back? Does this person violate boundaries that you’ve set with them, and then they just dismiss those boundaries and override them anyway? 

So first of all, if you’re feeling that you’ve been taken advantage of, ask the question why they take advantage of me. There’s a thought, a sentence in your head. Why do they take advantage of you? Well, I give more than I receive in return. I’m just walking you through the coaching that happened. The person said they take advantage of me. I said why? Why is this happening? I give more than they return. Why is that a problem? I deserve to have a return as well. 

I want you to think about that. I deserve to have a return as well. How does the thought feel? I deserve to have a return. Now there’s a healthy way to feel about that, yes. You are worthy of a relationship that has give and take in it. If you’re in a relationship that truly is you give 100 and they give zero, you may want to evaluate that relationship. Okay. 

But ask yourself the truth. Is it true that you give 100% and they give zero? Or is it true that today maybe you gave 100% and they gave zero? Or is it a pattern? What is the percentage going on, and what feels most true for you? Because it is true. You do deserve to be in relationships that have given take. You want to acknowledge the ones that do and question the ones that don’t. 

So let’s just say okay, this relationship, it’s not 100% and zero. Maybe it’s 80/20. You want to ask yourself well, how do you handle the moments when you feel the imbalance? The response I got was well, I stew over it. I am a little passive aggressive. I talk about setting boundaries, but I don’t really set them. But eventually I gave in. I thought that was fascinating. 

So there’s something going on in the relationship where the person who feels taken advantage of is upset and hurt, but then comes back to the relationship. So I asked, why do you go back? The answer was I want the relationship. I said if you want the relationship then it comes down to two options. 

Number one, you have to decide why you want the relationship. Decide what you will and will not tolerate in the relationship that you want, and get very clear about why you want it. So if you do want a relationship, but you feel that you’re being taken advantage of, that’s kind of interesting, right? Why would you be in a relationship if you feel that someone’s taking advantage of you? Why do you want it?

You might find that you want it because there are attributes about the relationship where you do receive. It might not be happening in this moment, but you might be receiving in the greater picture. Okay, just notice that. Then do decide what you are and are not going to tolerate and set boundaries. I’m going to talk more about boundaries in just a second. So option number one is decide what you will and will not tolerate and set boundaries for yourself. I’ll tell you how to do that in a second.

Then number two, the other option is you have to adjust the way you interpret this person’s actions. So you either decide with clarity here are my boundaries, here’s what I will and will not tolerate. Here’s what I’m going to do if this happens. Number two, if you don’t want to set boundaries, or if you notice well, there actually isn’t really boundary violations. I guess it was just in my mind. Then it’s up to you to adjust your interpretation of this person’s actions.

Maybe they don’t have the intention of taking advantage of you. Maybe they’re not really trying to take advantage of you. Maybe it was just a feeling or a thought that you had in the moment. But upon reflection, perhaps that might not be true for you. Or it might not feel as intense as it maybe did in the beginning. 

Because when you reflect on it, you’re like oh, I see what was going on for me. I was feeling this. I really wanted them to call me back right away, and they didn’t. I was making that mean they were taking advantage of me because I pick up the phone when they call, but they don’t pick up the phone when I call. See how the brain goes to all or none? I do it, but they don’t. The zero, 100, right? Just notice that. So, number one, what will you tolerate and not tolerate? Number two, adjust the way you interpret this person’s actions. 

Now, if you do believe that you’re giving more value than you receive from the relationship, number one, why is this a problem for you? I love this question. Why is giving more than you receive a problem? Fascinating, right? I always want to be the person that gives more than I receive in a relationship. 

What if giving more than you receive was the goal of every relationship you had? That I’m going to give 100% of me as best I can 100% of the time. If this person gives back 40 or 50%, great. I like that value ratio to be on the benefit of the person I’m in the relationship with, whether it’s a friend, or a family member, or a colleague or a client, especially a client. If y’all hire me, I’m going to make sure that you’re getting 10 times what you’re giving to me. It’s not about me in the client relationship. It’s about you. Okay, I want that. 

So it’s interesting to think about. If my boss is asking of me, I want to give 10x. They’re paying me a lot of money. I’m gonna go do the thing, right? If I’m feeling taken advantage of as the employee, I’ve got to do some thought work around that. Okay. 

So why is it a problem for you if you are giving more than the other person? Consider that over delivering feels better than under delivering. Always giving yourself what you need so that you don’t have to rely on other people for your emotional certainty and sufficiency feels so much better than feeling like they have to give you 50/50 for you to feel good about the friendship or the relationship. I love that so much. Okay. 

If it is a problem for you, if your brain just can’t wrap its head around you’re giving more than they’re giving and it does feel like it’s a problem for you, why do you think this is happening? Why is the imbalance happening? Why is it a problem? How might you balance it out or prevent it from happening again in the future? 

So I asked my client okay, if it is a problem for you, why is it continuing to happen? What do you want to have happen in the future? So I asked them why it was happening. They said well, I’m afraid to speak up, and I don’t want to harm the relationship. I said this is so crazy, right? 

If the relationship is truly harming you mentally, emotionally, physically, psychologically, if there’s some harm being done in this relationship, it’s interesting that your brain wants the relationship. Isn’t it okay if the outcome of the relationship is ending it if it’s causing harm, truly, okay? If you’re afraid to speak up, what do you think will happen? What’s the fear that you have around speaking up? Is that fear, is the outcome that you fear worse than the outcome of feeling that people are taking advantage of you? Notice.

Now another thing that happened in this conversation was that the person found themselves bouncing back and forth, wanting to be in the relationship, feeling taken advantage of, wanting to be in the relationship, feeling taken advantage of. 

If you find yourself bouncing back and forth with a person in terms of feeling taken advantage by them, ask yourself this question. Is it always true? Is it true that the person is always taking and not giving? Are there any circumstances where you feel they aren’t taking advantage and maybe they’re giving to you? Can you seek out and find the truth in the 50/50? Can you see it? 

Sometimes our brain just kind of subconsciously ignores the balance. We want to bring it back and say hey, let’s look for the 50/50. If I really want this relationship, there must be something I’m getting out of it. Okay? Even if it means I over deliver, and I feel great about that. I don’t need this person to do anything for me. I just love them, and I love giving to them, and I don’t need them to give back. I just choose to give. 

It’s like my kid. My kid could do nothing for me, but my love for him knows no bounds. I will do anything for him. I don’t need him to behave a certain way or take on a certain job or call me at a certain time. Actually, today is his birthday by the way. Happy birthday, Alex. 

Today’s his golden birthday. He’s 24 on the 24th here. It’s the 24th of April, y’all. If you’re listening in real time, and today’s his birthday sweet boy. I’m gonna call him when I get off the phone, but I don’t need him to call me. I don’t need him to behave a certain way. I just love him unconditionally. I let that relationship be unbalanced. It’s the best feeling in the world. 

I feel like that with my clients. I try to feel that way in my marriage. I try to feel that way with my friendships. I always want to give more. If I sat down, there is so much I gain from my son, from my husband, from my friends, from my family, there is so much that they give to me, it just looks different than how I give to them. Look for how they are giving, okay. 

Now, I want to say something quickly about if you feel taken advantage of because there is an imbalance of power, an imbalance based on positional authority such as your boss, like a superior, your brain might offer you that that person does have the power and the authority to take advantage of you, literally take advantage of you. Let me offer this, okay. 

Even if your boss is intentionally taking advantage of you, overworking you, causing harm in some way, shape, or form, okay, physically, mentally, emotionally, psychologically. First of all if that’s happening, please get the assistance you need to get out ASAP, whatever assistance that requires. 

But if it’s one of those things where you just feel like they’re taking advantage of you, I want to, with the greatest of love, offer this. You are not bound to that job. I promise you. It might feel like you need that job and you can’t let go of it, and that you have to let people take advantage of you because you don’t have other options. 

If that’s the way you feel, please get a mentor, get a coach, get somebody who can help you get out of that toxic environment. I help people with this all the time. Get a plan to get out of that environment, and then get a coach or a therapist or a mentor to help you while you’re in the environment until you can get to a safer environment. Okay? Get out if you need to. 

It can feel very manipulative when you’re in it. It feels very, I would call it you feel trapped. You feel stuck. You are not stuck. Do not let your brain convince you that you’re stuck. Please do not do that. Even in the most toxic of situations, the more toxic the better it is to get somebody to help you get out. 

If you believe you are in a position where people are using positional authority to leverage taking advantage of you, I want you to consider the cost of staying in that situation versus the work required to get it out. I know it feels scary, but the scary getting out is much less scary than the scary staying in. Okay. If you want support with that, just schedule a free consult with me. I’ll talk you through it.

Now, before you make big decisions around your career, or your marriage, or your friendships, or your relationships with your family, I want to invite you, however, to first take a look at the thoughts around being taken advantage of. Because they want you to see if your brain has slipped into all or none thinking before you take action. I don’t want you to react out of emotion. I want you to be intentional with it. Am I really being taken advantage of? Explore that. Or am I thinking, am I in a mindset that I’m being taken advantage of? 

Okay, so here are some questions to ask yourself to filter out to make decisions about whether you are being taken advantage of or whether you’re feeling like someone’s taking advantage of you. Is it true that this person is abusing me in some way, shape, or form? Is it true that I am in physical, mental, or emotional danger? Or am I upset about a specific situation that happened?

Am I feeling taken advantage of because this person is not behaving the way I want them to or that I would prefer them to behave? Notice this. If you want somebody to behave in a certain way in response to how you interact with them, the relationship you’re creating is tit for tat. Actually, if you expect them to behave in a certain way, you’re taking advantage of them by wanting to manipulate them and wanting to control their behaviors. 

So if I tell my son, I’m only going to love you and be in relationship with you if you call me at this time, or you call me this many days, or you go on this career path. I don’t know what people say to their kids or any relationship. You want your husband to behave a certain way, your partner to behave a certain way, your spouse, any loved one, any colleague, a teacher out there. 

If you think you’re being taken advantage of because they’re not behaving the way you want them to, I want you to take a closer look at that. Because what’s really happening is there’s a subtle part of you that’s taking advantage of them or attempting to, okay. What is it that I need to have in order to feel fulfilled in this relationship? What do I want this person to fulfill for me so I can feel there is a balance? How can I find a way to fulfill that on my own or in another way? 

Now, if you are the person being accused of taking advantage of somebody, you can just do the flip of this. Ask yourself is it true? Where is it true? Am I taking advantage here? Am I causing harm unintentionally or intentionally? Am I violating a boundary? Am I being unaware somewhere? Let me just look for the truth in that. Because sometimes we do it unintentionally, and we can apologize and be more aware. We can approach things differently in the future. 

So you can ask yourself, am I not giving value back into this relationship? Is there somewhere I’m missing? Something I’m missing? Yes or no? Value your opinion of that. If you feel like hey no, here are the things I’m doing. Honor that. But if there’s something that you just subconsciously missed or weren’t aware of, that’s okay. We’re human. Acknowledge it, honor it, apologize, and be aware of it moving forward. But also think about what else could be true here. Okay. 

So one thing I want to say about boundaries. When we set a boundary, the boundary we set is for ourselves. We do not call up the person and say I am setting a boundary with you. If you do this or if you do that, I’m going to do this, or I’m going to do that. Or if you do this or you do that, then you’re going to need to XYZ. No, no, no. Boundaries are internal work. 

So you ask yourself, is this person causing me harm? If the answer is yes, here’s how you set a boundary. What will I tolerate, and what will I not? Why? Know your reasons and love them. Make sure they’re aligned to your values. If somebody is causing harm, do you want to be in relationship with them or not? If it’s your brain that’s creating the mentality of being taken advantage of, you can coach yourself on that. 

But a boundary is what you are going to tolerate and not tolerate being clear on that, and it’s what you will do in response. So if somebody comes into my office as a school leader and starts cursing and swearing and screaming at me, and they’re out of control, that’s a no for me. 

Now, what I’m going to do is I am going to take action. I’m going to ask them to leave. I’m going to stand up. I’m going to say this conversation has finished until you can be calm. I’m going to ask you to leave and set an appointment for when you’re calm. If they don’t leave, then I’m going to call for backup. I am going to take the action. A boundary is not the action you want another person to take because we don’t control what they think, how they feel, and how they behave. We can never do that. 

So we want to be careful that we’re not setting boundaries in an attempt to manipulate somebody else’s behavior. Sadly, we cannot do that. Nor would we want somebody doing that to us, right? It would be amazing if we could do it, but we wouldn’t want people doing it to us. So that’s out of our lane. The only thing that’s in our lane is what we think, how we feel, what we value, and we can take ownership and empowerment back so that you don’t ever feel taken advantage of. 

If you have been taken advantage of in a harmful way, how do you empower yourself back into okay, here’s how it felt. I processed that emotion. Here’s what I’m going to do differently next time to protect myself so you can step back into your empowerment and not live in the mindset that I’m a person who gets taken advantage of. It’s a very disempowered way to lead and to live your life. 

Okay. If you want more, schedule a consult. We’ll talk about it directly. I am happy to help you. Happy May. Happy Tuesday. Have a wonderful week. I’ll talk to you guys next week. Take good care. Bye.

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